The C.S.A. Survival Manual

The C.S.A. Survival Manual
Published by C.S.A. Enterprises, Spring 1982
174 pages, extremely rare and hard to find.

The CSA was the original anti-government survivalist militia. It developed from a Baptist congregation called the Zarephath-Horeb Community Church, founded in 1971 in Elijah in southern Missouri. Over time, Zarephath-Horeb evolved into an extremist paramilitary organization, adopted a Christian "identity" doctrine, and rechristened itself the CSA.

In April 1985, law enforcement officers investigating the group for weapons violations and terrorist acts carried out a siege against the compound. After a peaceful resolution, officers arrested and convicted CSA's top leaders, and the organization soon dissolved.

I got hold of a copy of the manual while researching the CSA for some science fiction stories that I am working on. The CSA had become a major source of inspiration for a breakaway faction of a rebel/resistance group in my stories, and I wanted to know more about them. A manual written by them was hard to resist

While large parts of the manual are dated, there is some surprisingly useful information in the book. The worst apsect of the book (aside from the white supremacist views of the authors) is that it tries to cover too many topics, and some topics are covered to briefly to be useful.

A disproportionate emphasis is given to firearms, but this is not completely unexpected due to the nature of the CSA.

The good firearms advice: shotguns should be the first survival weapon one considers due to their versatility. A good rifle in .223 or .308 is also needed, as is a good .22 rimfire rifle. You need to inspect/clean your weapons often, even if you don't use them often. You will need to inspect/clean your weapons more often during humid times of year than in drier times of the year, or if you live near the sea, etc.

The pages on shooting at acute angles, both uphill and downhill, is very interesting.

The bad sections: the shooting positions are covered too briefly, the page on marksmanship is not written all that well, the field craft section is too brief to be useful.

The "I don't know what to think of this" advice: have 6-8 magazines and 1000-2000 rounds of ammunition per gun. When defending your retreat, warn the enemy that you have a rifle and fire off a single .22 shot - which will make them feel relatively bold against such an underpowered weapon. When they approach you, use shotguns and semi-auto rifles.

The knife section is too brief to be much use, and focuses on knife fighting and sentry elimination. If you want to know what they suggest, take a look at Rex Applegate's Kill or Get Killed book. Its the same material.

MOLLE hadn't been invented when the manual was written, so all the advice on gear/kit is on the ALICE system. Interesting, but not really useful these days.

For some reason, there is a section on tools and tool selection in the firearms/weapons chapter... The suggested tool list is actually pretty good, and even makes a distinction between high priority tools (e.g. steel tape rulers, C-clamps, crosscut saws, hacksaws, utility scissors, glass cutters, flat/Phillips head screwdrivers, , claw hammers, etc.)

The food an water sections are typical for survival manuals of this era.

There is a table on pages 64-65 to help you with sprouting. The table shows, amongst other things, the yields a given amount of seeds will/should result in, the soak times for the seeds, what kind of screens to use for a given variety of seeds, grow times, nutritional highlights, and serving ideas. This was the most useful part of the food/water chapters.

The CSA manual recommends having stockpiles of clothing and footwear suitable for the climate in your area. Rain gear is recommended, as are greens and camo clothing.

The "home defence" chapter is actually about fortifying your retreat with barbed wire entanglements, clearing your land so you have clear fields of fire, hiding your home/structures amongst trees to help hide them, reinforcing your home with masonry to protect against bullets, having two barbed wire fences around your retreat, making bunkers, and so on.

The wilderness survival chapter is typical for this subject. It covers shelter, fire, cooking, traps, edible plants, roots/leaves, nuts, weather and how it relates to survival, maps and navigation, and knots. It also looks at rappelling.

The first aid chapter is not worth reading, and the nuclear war survival stuff is typical for the era.

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The C.S.A. Survival Manual